Music

You Gotta Know These Musical Works
The following table lists the 50 most-frequently referenced works of music in NAQT questions as of November 1, 2007. While you really gotta know their creators, these are also some of the works about which more substantive questions are written, so teams should be prepared for questions on their style, instrumentation, performance, lyrics, key, program, and circumstances of creation.
This is an update of an earlier You Gotta Know article.

Rank	Title	Genre	Creator	Date	Freq.
1	Carmen	Opera	Georges Bizet	1845	147
2	Aida	Opera	Giuseppe Verdi	1871	146
3	The Ring of the Nibelung	Opera	(Wilhelm) Richard Wagner	1876	122
4	Messiah	Oratorio	George Frideric Handel	1741	102
5	Symphony No. 9, "Choral"	Symphony	Ludwig van Beethoven	1823	100
6	Symphony No. 6, "Pastoral"	Symphony	Ludwig van Beethoven	1808	97
7	Symphonie fantastique	Symphony	(Louis-)Hector Berlioz	1830	92
8	The Nutcracker	Ballet	Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky	1892	91
9	The Rite of Spring	Ballet	Igor (Fyodorovich) Stravinsky	1913	90
10	Madama Butterfly	Opera	Giacomo Puccini	1904	89
11	Symphony No. 3, "Eroica"	Symphony	Ludwig van Beethoven	1804	86
12	The Barber of Seville	Opera	Gioacchino (Antonio) Rossini	1816	85
13	The Magic Flute	Opera	Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart	1791	84
14	Appalachian Spring	Ballet	Aaron Copland	1944	83
15	Rigoletto	Opera	Giuseppe Verdi	1851	82
16	Don Giovanni	Opera	Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart	1787	79
17	La Bohème	Opera	Giacomo Puccini	1896	78
18	Fidelio	Opera	Ludwig van Beethoven	1805	77
19	The Four Seasons	Concerto	Antonio Vivaldi	1725	73
20	Rhapsody in Blue	Composition	George Gershwin	1924	72
21	The Marriage of Figaro	Opera	Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart	1784	72
22	West Side Story	Musical	Leonard Bernstein	1957	68
23	Siegfried	Opera	(Wilhelm) Richard Wagner	1876	66
24	Moonlight Sonata	Sonata	Ludwig van Beethoven	1801	63
25	The Planets	Suite	Gustav(us Theodore von) Holst	1918	61
26	Symphony No. 6, "Pathétique"	Symphony	Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky	1893	60
27	Porgy and Bess	Opera	George Gershwin	1935	60
28	William Tell	Opera	Gioacchino Rossini	1804	59
29	Peter and the Wolf	Composition	Sergei (Sergeyevich) Prokofiev	1936	59
30	The Song of the Earth	Symphony	Gustav Mahler	1909	59
31	Swan Lake	Ballet	Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky	1877	58
32	The Flying Dutchman	Opera	(Wilhelm) Richard Wagner	1843	58
33	Lohengrin	Opera	(Wilhelm) Richard Wagner	1850	57
34	Boléro	Composition	(Joseph) Maurice Ravel	1928	55
35	The Phantom of the Opera	Musical	Andrew Lloyd Webber	1910	54
36	Tosca	Opera	Giacomo Puccini	1900	54
37	Turandot	Opera	Giacomo Puccini	1762	53
38	La Traviata	Opera	Giuseppe Verdi	1853	53
39	Pictures at an Exhibition	Composition	Modest (Petrovich) Mussorgsky	1874	53
40	A German Requiem	Sacred Choral Work	Johannes Brahms	1868	51
41	Symphony No. 94, "Surprise"	Symphony	(Franz) Joseph Haydn	1791	50
42	Symphony No. 41, "Jupiter"	Symphony	Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart	1788	50
43	Symphony No. 9, "From the New World"	Symphony	Antonín (Leopold) Dvorák	1893	49
44	The Mikado	Musical	Arthur Sullivan (music) William S. Gilbert (words)	1885	48
45	My Fair Lady	Musical	Frederick Loewe	1956	47
46	Falstaff	Opera	Giuseppe Verdi	1893	47
47	Boris Godunov	Opera	Modest (Petrovich) Mussorgsky	1869	47
48	Cats	Musical	Andrew Lloyd Webber	1982	46
49	Enigma Variations	Composition	Edward (William) Elgar	1899	46
50	Salome	Opera	Richard (Georg) Strauss	1905	45